Preckwinkle calls on controversial Palos Township trustee to resign from county commission

Palos Township Trustee Sharon Brannigan faced backlash at the township board meeting on July 10, 2017, where dozens of activists called for her resignation over remarks she made on Facebook about Islam, Muslims and Middle Eastern students.

(Zak Koeske / Daily Southtown)

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle on Wednesday called for a Palos Township trustee who had made controversial statements on Facebook to resign from the county’s Commission on Women’s Issues.

Preckwinkle said Sharon Brannigan’s comments, which have been perceived as anti-Arab and anti-Muslim, run contrary to the views of the commission, which exists to advance the status of women and girls in Cook County.

If these posts accurately reflect her views on diversity and inclusion, I believe she should step down from the Commission,” Preckwinkle said in a statement. “Such viewpoints certainly do not reflect our values nor, in my opinion, the kind of representation we want on the Commission.”

Brannigan, a Republican who ran against U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski in 2014, has taken heat for a recent Facebook post that suggested the area’s schools were filling with undocumented Middle Eastern students.

A 2015 post Brannigan wrote about the movie “American Sniper” makes reference to “Barack Hussein Obama,” asserts that area Muslims fail to integrate into the community and criticizes Lipinski for not stemming the growing tide of Middle Eastern immigration into the United States.

“Everywhere you turn, from Orland Park to Bridgeview, those numbers are increasing in leaps and bounds,” she wrote. “We are allowing these people whether they have peaceful intentions or not into our country without question.”

Activists demanded Monday that a Palos Township trustee resign over comments she made on Facebook

She has since taken down her Facebook page, but has not apologized for her comments and said Monday that she would not resign.

Brannigan could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday, but said previously that her recent Facebook comment about local schools filling with undocumented Middle Eastern immigrants was intended to bring awareness to the community’s growing tax burden.

She has defended her comments by citing her First Amendment right to free speech, and said she fully supported “hardworking immigrants who contribute their fair share to our society and township.”

Cook County Commissioner Sean M. Morrison, who appointed Brannigan to the county’s Commission on Women’s Issues in May 2016, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Brannigan’s term on the commission ends next May.